War budget request loaded with extras

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By Stephen J. Hedges Washington Bureau

The Bush administration asked Congress on Monday to provide $82 billion to cover unbudgeted costs in the global war on terrorism, but the request includes funds for a long-planned military reorganization and for activities such as tsunami aid that are seemingly unrelated to terrorism.

The president's supplemental request seeks $42.5 billion that would pay for military activities in Iraq and Afghanistan through September, the end of the 2005 federal fiscal year, as well as $12 billion more to refurbish and replace worn-out vehicles, weapons and equipment used in those operations.

The request includes $3 billion that is unrelated to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and $19 billion more that is not directly related to U.S. military costs there.

"These funds will support U.S. armed forces and coalition partners as we advance democracy, fight the insurgency, and train and equip Iraqi security forces so that they can defend their sovereignty and freedom," President Bush said in a letter to House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.). Bush urged Congress "not to attach to this proposal items that are not directly related to these emergencies abroad."

But the White House attached its extra spending request to a measure that is labeled "Funding for the War on Terror." Among the extras is $5.3 billion to pay for a restructuring of the Army and, to a lesser degree, the Marine Corps. The administration chose to not include those items in the $419.3 billion defense budget for 2006 that Bush submitted to Congress last week.

That omission has raised bipartisan concerns among members of Congress, who criticized the president for using the supplemental request to further bolster an already escalating defense budget, and to fund programs that are unrelated to military operations.

Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, told military leaders last week that the administration's annual defense budget concealed the true cost of its military spending.

"It hides the true size of the overall budget deficit because it does not include the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan," Levin said of the defense budget. "It simply fails to include funding to pay for the incremental costs of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan."

Others supported the White House request, including Rep. Jerry Lewis(R-Calif.), chairman of the House Appropriations Committee. On Monday, he told The Associated Press that he would push the bill "quickly and cleanly through the Congress."

Monday's supplemental request, if approved, would fund $7.4 billion to train Iraqi and Afghan security forces and $2 billion for Afghanistan reconstruction costs, as well as provide $2 billion to countries that have supported the U.S. efforts.

The White House also asked for $658 million to build a new embassy in Iraq and $717 million for staff and related security operations.

It also asks Congress to fund international aid and relief efforts that have nothing to do with Iraq and Afghanistan, including:

- $950 million for the victims of the Dec. 26 Southeast Asian tsunami;

- $342.4 million for those suffering in the Darfur region of Sudan; and

- $780 million for the U.S. share of peacekeeping efforts in Haiti, Ivory Coast, Burundi and Sudan.

Congress previously has approved more than $192 billion in supplemental spending for U.S. operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. If the new request is approved, the cost of the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and other operations would jump to nearly $275 billion, far beyond the initial $200 billion estimate by Lawrence Lindsey, a former economic policy adviser to Bush.

Currently there are about 152,000 American troops in Iraq, a number that is expected to drop by about 15,000 next month. U.S. commanders have not indicated when most of the U.S. forces might start returning home from the country, a consideration that is largely dependent on the ability of U.S.-trained Iraqi forces to take over security operations. Pentagon planners have prepared for military operations in Iraq through 2010.

The latest supplemental request, according to White House spokesman Scott McClellan, "provides funding to make sure we are doing everything we can to train and equip Iraqi and Afghan forces in those areas. We want to make sure that Iraqi forces are going to be in position to ultimately provide for their own security so that our troops will be able to return home with honor."

The Army has borne the brunt of the mission in Iraq, and the Pentagon contends that the Army's restructuring costs are an important part of its operations there. The Army is changing its organization to reduce its reliance on large divisions of up to 20,000 soldiers and instead aims to form 33 to 43 brigades of about 5,000 soldiers each.

The new brigades will contain their own armor, helicopters, intelligence and other units that currently are drawn from within the larger divisions. The hope is that they will be more self-sufficient and modular so they could be sent to foreign lands without the support of a larger force.

In the administration's 2006 Defense Department budget, the Army's overall budget actually drops by $300 million to $100 billion. But Pentagon officials, including Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, have pointed to the unbudgeted Iraq-Afghanistan spending to show that Army spending is actually increasing.

Several military analysts have noted that more outside spending is creeping into the supplemental military requests, and more still may be added by Congress.

"It seems as though they're using the supplemental as a standard part of the budgeting process and it is becoming institutionalized," said Loren Thompson, who directs the Lexington Institute, a Washington-area think tank. "It's partly because the administration isn't eager to admit that it's spending half a trillion a year on defense. But it's also because it has discovered that it will meet no resistance on Capitol Hill if it's spending that is characterized as being for the troops."

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War budget request loaded with extras

$5.3 BILLION

Reorganizing Army and Marines to fight terrorism

$950 MILLION

Recovery funds for nations hit by South Asian tsunami

$342 MILLION

Aid to feed refugees and bolster peace accord in Sudan

$200 MILLION

Education and border security for Palestinians

$60 MILLION

Support for Ukraine's new reform government

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Some $22 billion of the proposed $82 billion supplemental funding that President Bush has requested for the war on terrorism would go toward projects not directly related to U.S. military action in Iraq and Afghanistan. The bill is the fourth Bush has proposed since April 2003, bringing the total supplementary requests to $275 billion.

Among the funds not directly related to U.S. military action:

Bill not entirely for U.S. military action

AMOUNT / REASON FOR FUNDING

$7.4 billion: Training/equipping Iraqi and Afghan military and police.

$5.3 billion: Restructuring Army and Marine units.

$1.85 billion: Countering drugs, paying for security and supporting reconstruction in Afghanistan.

$950 million: Helping areas affected by the recent tsunami in the Indian Ocean.

$1.38 billion: Constructing/operating a new U.S. Embassy in Baghdad.

$400 million: Economically assisting nations that have taken political and economic risks to join the U.S.-led coalitions in Iraq and Afghanistan

$342 million: Providing aid to promote peace for people in civil war-stricken Sudan.

$200 million: Funding education and border security for the Palestinians.

$300 million: Providing economic and military aid in Jordan.

$150 million: Providing military aid for Pakistan.

$60 million: Aiding Ukraine

$780 million: Funding international peacekeeping activities

Source: White House

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